The U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is seeking to fill the position of Director, Office of Transportation Management. The incumbent serves as a national leader in advancing the operations of metropolitan, rural, and statewide surface transportation systems to enhance mobility, efficiency, productivity, and safety. The incumbent provides leadership and direction to a technical staff in identifying and implementing policies and initiatives to reduce congestion and improve the movement of people and goods across the transportation system. In addition, the incumbent oversees the deployment of Intelligent Transportation Systems technology to improve routine and non-routine transportation management across the nation.

Additional information and a full list of duties are available on the USA Jobs Website. Applications are due no later than September 22, 2017.

Image Courtesy: ITSA.org – Click image to learn more.

Nearly 50% of the country’s containerized cargo passes through the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, making Southern California the epicenter of America’s freight network. From infrastructure investments that support reliable and efficient freight movement, to an emerging suite of advanced safety technologies on-board commercial vehicles, the nation’s freight network continues to deploy innovative solutions to address challenges and improve performance.

Make plans today to join ITS America, Caltrans, Contra Costa Transportation Authority, the Port of Long Beach andITS California for a two-day event, March 26-27, as we explore the smarter movement of goods in the 21st century by advancing an intelligent freight transportation network.

The symposium will take place in our most unique location yet — on board the historic Queen Mary. Special registration rates are available for ITS America members, public sector attendees and students and start as low as $40.00. Learn how you and your organization can get involved, check out the preliminary program and register today at www.itsa.org/freightsymposium.

There is so much confusion and variation in the estimates/predictions when you hear the industry experts and forecasters talk about automated vehicles. Despite the challenges, there has been significant progress in the recent years and it is only getting more intense as the auto OEMs as well the tech geeks in Silicon Valley ramp up their investments and the research in the race to reach the holy grail.. Amidst all this chaos, comes this bold prediction.. 180,000 self-driving cars will be shipped globally by 2020.

Based on Frost & Sullivan estimates charted for us by BI Intelligence, there will be about 180,000 self-driving cars shipped globally by 2020. The market research firm adds that “you are likely to commute in autonomous cars” by 2025, which is a pretty bold statement considering that’s only a decade from now. 

And of course the source article doesn’t clearly articulate whether it is all Level 4 autonomy (no human input needed for operation)?  Do you agree with this prediction? Click here to read the article

Image Courtesy: Business Insider

TRB 2015 Annual Meeting – Vehicle-Highway Automation Projects and Programs

Call for Abstracts – Special Poster Session 

Committee on Vehicle-Highway Automation (AHB30)

Committee on Intelligent Transportation Systems (AHB15)

Joint Subcommittee on Challenges and Opportunities of Road Vehicle Automation

Vehicle-Highway automation has generated strong interest within the past year, leading to the initiation of a wide variety of new projects and programs.  Because of the novelty of this field, many of the new activities have not yet advanced to the stage that they can present sufficiently definitive results that would pass the normal peer review criteria for a technical paper.  Nevertheless, the plans and focus areas of these projects and programs are likely to be of significant interest to the TRB Annual Meeting participants. This poster session provides exposure to a wide range of topics and activities in the field of vehicle-highway automation.

Abstracts are invited now. The following topic areas related to vehicle-highway automation are suitable for the poster session:

•  introductions to research centers or programs
•  research agendas
• prospective studies and work in progress
• qualitative research studies

Please note that abstracts will be peer reviewed.  A limited number of posters will be selected for presentation based on the following criteria:

• technical quality
• originality
• direct relevance to the field of vehicle-highway automation
•  appropriateness of the methodology
•  non-commercial nature of the content.

Abstracts are due by September 15, 2014.  Peer review decisions will be announced by October 15, 2014.

• Please submit your abstract by emailing to TRBposter.automation@gmail.com
• Abstracts should be limited to 300 words.
• Abstracts should include:
  • Name, affiliation, and contact information for all authors
  • A descriptive title
  • A short description (300 words) of the proposed poster content

The U.S. Department of Transportation will host a free public meeting and webinar to inform stakeholders on the progress, products, and next steps of the Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program.

The public meeting is scheduled for April 30, 2014, from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm in Washington, DC. The public meeting will also be webcast at no charge.

Summary

Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program Description

On March 12, 2014, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced a Request for Information (RFI) that will be used to help refine the plans for one or more connected vehicle pilot deployments  (https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/03/12/2014-05414/connected-vehicle-pilot-deployment-program-request-for-information).

The Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program seeks to combine connected vehicle and mobile device technologies in innovative and cost-effective ways to improve traveler mobility and system productivity, while reducing environmental impacts and enhancing safety. The FHWA anticipates a procurement action for one or more pilot deployment concepts in 2015.

Purpose of Public Meeting and Webinar

The purpose of the meeting is to inform private sector stakeholders on upcoming opportunities and to seek input from public sector implementers as they prepare to integrate emerging connected vehicle and mobile device technologies into operational practice.   The meeting will provide information on the organizing principles and preliminary schedule of the Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program.  In addition, the meeting will provide a summary of challenges identified in the RFI and facilitate a further discussion with stakeholders regarding the most salient challenges. This meeting is being sponsored by the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Programs Office (ITS JPO).

The meeting will take place at:

HOLIDAY INN CAPITOL 
550 C Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20024,
(202) 479-4000

To register, visit: www.itsa.org/cvpilotsregistration

For further information contact:

Carlos Alban
Transportation Program Specialist
Intelligent Transportation Society of America
1100 New Jersey Ave., SE, Suite #850
Washington, DC 20003
Phone: 202-721-4223
Email:  calban@itsa.org

– See more at: http://www.its.dot.gov/meetings/cv_pilot_deployment.htm#sthash.D84C5YAq.dpuf

(Source: Bloomberg)

Intel Futurist Steve Brown discusses the future of driverless cars and cities on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” Transportation and City planners better start thinking already because we know your long-range plans drafted a decade or so ago is rendered useless by the fast paced evolution of computing and automobile technology (agree with Steve that the technology is coming but it may be more than a decade away). It is time to think different and act fast!

Federal Highway Administration – Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center

Upcoming Position: Research Transportation Specialist

Image courtesy. www.dot.gov

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is looking for a Research Transportation Specialist (GS-12/13) to lead state-of the-art transportation operations research projects at the nationally recognized Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, Virginia.  This position is for a junior or mid-level professional in the Transportation Operations Applications Team in the Office of Operations Research and Development (R&D).  The incumbent is experienced in research related to one or more of the following areas:

(a) Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS),
(b) traffic adaptive control systems,
(c) freeway management systems,
(d) wireless communications systems, and/or
(e) cooperative vehicle-highway systems to help achieve the FHWA’s system performance strategic goal.

This position provides an exciting opportunity to work in a collaborative environment at the Saxton Transportation Operations Laboratory and with nationally recognized experts on meaningful cutting edge research projects such as the connected vehicle initiative and vehicle automation, as well as nearer-term applied problems in transportation operations.  The incumbent will be expected to guide in-house research, manage extramural contracts, and encourage partnerships for on-site research at our Cooperative Vehicle-Highway Testbed, as well as offsite field research on public or private roads and/or test tracks. The ideal candidate will preferably have an advanced degree in an engineering or scientific field, with course work related to one or more aspects of ITS, traffic engineering, or telecommunications.  He/she should have 5 or more years of relevant work experience.  Strong leadership, organization and people skills are a must.

FHWA expects to announce the position soon.  The office will not be accepting resumes, please refer to the USA Jobs web site periodically for the specific vacancy announcement:  https://www.usajobs.gov/

Also see: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/operations/

Contact:  Ben McKeever, 202-493-3270 or ben.mckeever@dot.gov

Happy to be invited as a speaker for this event.  Hope you, my readers and followers, can tune in and learn from some of the best folks in the business about the impact of social media on ITS.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————–

The 10th Positive Thinking webinar takes place on Wednesday 20 November at 9am Pacific, noon EST, 5pm UK, 6pm Central Europe and focuses on Social Media and ITS.

How has social media affected the way the transportation industry does business? Are we using it properly? Do we fully understand the benefits? The latest in our series of POSITIVE THINKING webinars will attempt to answer these questions (and many more) and provide some fascinating insights into this new facet of the ITS sector.

Expert panellists Andy Palanisamy (TransportGooru), Lloyd Brown (AASHTO), Larry Ehl (Transportation Issues Daily), Ayelet Gal Tzur (Technion University, Israel) and Susan Grant-Muller (University of Leeds, UK) join regular presenters Kevin Borras and Bob McQueen to consider the likely undesirable side effects, how to best harness the value of a social media network and explain how the likes of Twitter and Facebook fit within a more integrated approach to outreach and marketing for transportation agency.

Join us on Wednesday 20 November and participate in this fascinating event. If you can’t listen live then register anyway as we will send you a link to the recording and slides a couple of days after the event. We look forward to you hearing us…

Click HERE to register.

Please note that in order to join the webinar, ‘Go To Webinar’ requires users to download some software. If your firewall may prevent this, please check with your IT department.